Stranding travelers across the continent as it forged surreal panoramas in the sky, the ash spewed forth by Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull might rank among 21st-century Europe’s most impressive natural disasters, but it didn’t quite register with Dan Snaith. “I’m barely aware of it — we’ve been locked away in a bunker rehearsing,” says Caribou’s frontman, in a Canadian accent unaltered by his years in London. “I haven’t seen a sunset.”

When I spoke with him, Snaith had grander plans in mind. The cataclysm struck just days before he was to set off on a world tour (he comes to the Middle East next Thursday) in support of Swim (Merge Records), a compelling assortment of aggressive dance beats, warm, sneaky harmonies, and surprising instrumentation. It’s easily his most ambitious record yet, an early contender for album of the year, and a strangely fitting soundtrack to billowing clouds of airborne debris.

Swim has roots in water and perfectionism. “We had a pool in our backyard when I was growing up,” he explains. “I could go from one end to the other. I figured out my own awkward way of doing it, but I really couldn’t enjoy swimming, because I didn’t have lessons.” His attitude changed when his wife got him swimming classes, around the time he conceived of Swim. “I never saw the gracefulness of it until I learned to do it properly — then I became obsessed with doing lengths every day, improving, and making it a meditative, repetitive thing instead of splashing around in the water like I used to.”

He thinks of his earlier output in similar terms, categorizing his work up till Swim as “messy.” It’s hard to agree with him. Since the 2005 release of The Milk of Human Kindness (earlier, moderately messier efforts were recorded under the name Manitoba), Caribou have been known for tight songcraft and careful nods to other acts and eras. Their second release, Andorra, was a loving homage to ’60s chamber pop, baroque in its layers of chary referentiality. “Because I’m a music fan, what excites me are particular sounds or ideas off records. As a person who’s interested in music production, it’s very easy for me to hear a record that I hadn’t heard before and think, ‘Oh my God, how did they do that?’ I naturally try and figure it out and do my own take on it.”

Swim was the result of working hard against these impulses. “I consciously avoided listening to other records. I avoided anything that referred to something specific in other music — I don’t have to use sounds that refer to other things. The most important thing for me was to push the idea of having my own sonic palette, my own musical fingerprint. With this record, I wanted music that people would listen to and say, ‘That can only be Caribou.’ ”

Did he succeed? Just put on “Leave House,” which starts with a keyboard riff that might have been lifted from Black Moth Super Rainbow (who owe their existence to The Milk of Human Kindness). After a few seconds, the mechanized, cowbell-propelled groove eradicates all thoughts of the (derivative) original. Listening to “Leave House” is like watching a Transformer use a Gobot for an arm. For Caribou to assimilate a sound-alike so completely is a breathtaking testament to their singularity and a potential sign of their impending world domination.

Fresh legends Nine out of 10 rap legends prefer People Under the Stairs. (The holdout is a crackhead.) That's no joke — in my hundreds of interviews with dudes who brought the noise and funk before the big ship sunk ( circa 1997), California underground heroes Thes One and Double K have been as popular a subject as the exploitation of old-school luminaries.

Oddballs Even if they had closed up shop 15 years ago, the Residents would go down as some of rock's most prolific pranksters. They aped the Beatles on their 1974 debut, Meet the Residents , tormented short attention spans with 40-minute songs on 1980's The Commercial Album , and skewered standards by everyone from James Brown to John Philip Sousa along the way.

Arty crashers Fucked Up's career is a game of dares they're winning. Over the past few years, the Toronto band have trashed a bathroom on an MTV broadcast, played a 12-hour set in a NYC boutique, reeled in random notables like David Cross, Bob Mould, and Nelly Furtado for Christmas charity singles, landed their vocalist Pink Eyes appearances on Fox News, and won the 2009 Polaris Music Prize.

Xiu Xiu | Dear God, I Hate Myself The reigning King of Discomfort, Jamie Stewart, and his new bandmate, Angela Seo (who took Cold Caveward–bound Caralee McElroy's place last year), recently released a video for this album's title track in which Seo forces herself to puke in front of the camera.

Lady killer Since the only way to write about female rappers is to harp on gender, here's the catchy kick-paragraph buzznote that we're playing: Dessa has more in common with black Republicans than you might realize. Although she's proud to hail from Venus, the poetic Minnesota songstress has refused to let prejudice paralyze her rise in a male-weighted industry.

The other side of heavy Loving heavy rock is a two-step process. Step one is easy: you hear something heavier than you've ever heard before, and you realize, "This is my thing." Step two is a little trickier: you wonder, "What is 'heavy'?" If you can accept the idea that a certain set of limitations leads to ultimate heaviosity, then — kudos! — you are a metalhead.

The young and the restless Clayton McIntyre of Box Elders has one of the better "why nothing makes me nervous" stories I've heard.

Prog wild Let me just assure you, right off, that after this, I promise never, ever, to talk to you about this year’s SXSW again, but check it out: we passed by a tossed-up tent-and-chain-link venue with a long line jutting into the street, and from between the portajohns came one of the lowest frequencies I’d ever heard — you could hear their plastic locks rattle and feel it on the surface of your shirt.

Make yourself uncomfortable In the past month, Sandra Bullock’s husband betrayed her by screwing a white supremacist with a face tattoo, a Georgia teenager was granted the right to take his boyfriend to prom, and Ricky Martin declared himself a “fortunate homosexual man.”

Li(f)e story Should nothing change over the next couple of months, July will mark one year since Providence’s Sage Francis — who comes to the Middle East this Wednesday — has written or recorded a single verse.

IS BOSTON RIGHT FOR WRITERS? | March 05, 2013 Boston, the birthplace of American literature, boasts three MFA programs, an independent creative-writing center, and more than a dozen colleges offering creative-writing classes.

INTERVIEW: THE PASSION OF MIKE DAISEY | February 14, 2013 Last January, storyteller Mike Daisey achieved a level of celebrity rarely attained among the off-Broadway set when the public radio program This American Life aired portions of his monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs .

GETTING BOOKED: WINTER READS | December 21, 2012 Who cares about the fiscal cliff when we'll have authors talking about Scientology, the space-time continuum, and Joy Division?

BRILLIANT FRIENDS: GREAT READS OF 2012 | December 17, 2012 You already know Chis Ware's Building Stories is the achievement of the decade (thanks, New York Times!), but some other people wrote some pretty great books this year too.